My brother and I used to add stuff to our coloring books for laughs. Here’s a selection of pages we changed that were remotely funny. Right-click each page for full size.
Sis-in-law got involved when we got the Super Doodles book.
I’ve been waxing nostalgic for old video game magazines. Back before the internet, kids, we used to have to rely on monthly magazines for our video game information and reviews. And yeah, the pro reviewers were just as full of shit back then as they are today…except we didn’t have any Zoey Quinns to reinvent bullying, extortion, and self-indulgence.
I dug out my last remaining mags and decided to scan anything that caught my interest. Below is a collection of various odds and ends: interesting articles, weird celebrity guest appearances, funny ads, and tons and tons of original art for you to make avatars with. Have fun!
I’m sorry that nobody has told you yet, Yahoo News, so I guess I’ll have to tell you.
This is not. fucking. news.
This is one of many factoids you might bring up in a broad discussion about gender issues in Disney films, and even then it only has relevance if you’re also discussing the content of those lines: fewer lines doesn’t mean less meaningful or important. In that capacity, it’s perfectly acceptable, if a bit neurotic that someone sat down and tallied every single line to prove a point that was probably already obvious (you’re telling me the movie about the girl who only wants to cook and clean her whole life is sexist? the hell you say!).
As a newsworthy story, it’s only acceptable to the mouth-foaming psycho manatees who have made up your demographic ever since you bought Tumblr. When you elevate this one little factoid to “headline” status, you’re making mountains out of molehills for the sake of stirring people up. The fact that people are stupid and immature enough for it to work every time is irrelevant.
Let’s face it, Yahoo: you only report the actual news when it involves a mass killing, and even when you do that, you can’t wait — can’t fucking wait — for everyone else to get over it so you can go back to what you really care about: celebrity gossip, stale political updates, and anything to boil a soccer mom’s blood. The rest of the time, you’re sifting through the Tumblr battlefield, looking for the hottest topics your child-minded lunatic followers are gibbering about this week, so you can then post it as a news headline, even though everyone else on the internet has already known about it for the past two weeks.
Nobody takes you seriously, Yahoo. Nobody but the demographic you were clearly named after. You’re like a sixty-year-old trying to act young and hip, only more embarrassing and pathetic. Just stop it already.
Decided to take a photo inventory of the video game libraries cluttering my office. I’ll replace them with better photos at a later date. When I got out of collecting toys, I started collecting old school video games instead to fill in the gap, and built up a hell of a hoard.
NES
SNES
SEGA GENESIS
PANASONIC 3DO
N64
SONY PLAYSTATION
This was a big surprise: apparently in the UK they made Sammy Steel variants. Information about the toy line itself is already pretty damned obscure, so to find out that there were variants is pretty incredible. These photos are courtesy of an ebay user who will hopefully confirm whether these are authentic or reproductions.
Compare to the original parts below:
Spaceman figure is in this pic. ^
The paint on the originals and the variants are both equally cheapo. The sticker placement could be achieved if the set was re-molded at home, and the outer casing appears to be molded from black plastic and not simply repainted. If anyone has photos of more variants, do send them my way so I can confirm if this is the real deal or not.
UPDATE 1/6/2016: Holy crap, they’re real. Someone else has been selling them, too! I stumbled upon her Dome of Doom variant below:
And when I asked her about the item, she kindly linked me to a previous sale, a Sinister Saucer variant!
The US version:
This is amazing to me. That this obscure-as-all-hell knockoff toy had regional variants. If anyone has a complete set, send me all your photos and ebay listings!
UPDATE 3/18/2016: Found something even more mind-blowing, courtesy of a very difficult-to-find UK ebay listing.
My first thoughts were along the lines of UK Sammy Steel being distributed under a different name, but upon closer inspection, Imperial’s brand name is entirely absent from the packaging. This leads me to believe that we are looking at a BOOTLEG of a knockoff of Mighty Max.
I tried to convince the seller to ship to the US, but they’ve been unresponsive, so it’s likely I’ll never get my hands on this one.
UPDATE 5/15/2020: Got a carded knockoff, so it seems they’re not just UK variants. Someone took the molds and made alternate playsets minus Sammy. Here’s a Dome of Doom comparison.
I like the idea of one playset for the bad guys and one for the good guys.
C. S. Wilde said to try this, so I tried it.
What are you writing?
Spy fiction set in the samurai era, a humorous fantasy novel, and a sci-fi western. The first is being published professionally; I’m planning to self-publish the other two at the risk of no one taking me seriously as a writer ever again (ha-ha like they ever did in the first place).
How does your work differ from others in its genre?
It’s pulp fiction with fleshed-out characters rather than archetypes, so readers can enjoy it on multiple levels: as disposable trash fiction or as something with a bit more meat to it. I also try to come up with really unusual settings and ideas, let them loose and see where they go. Mostly it’s all to keep my own interest so I can actually finish what I start. Writing a standard western would probably bore me; writing a post-apocalyptic western with a cast of wicked, depraved women would totally keep my interest.
I suppose my horror fiction differs from other internet horror fiction in that I took a professional approach and actually proofread what I wrote. I couldn’t publish my horror stories, so I put them all on the creepypasta wiki for free.
Why do you write what you do?
Lots of reasons. I write adventure and horror because that’s what fascinated me as a child. I write character-driven plots out of my love of westerns and samurai tales. I write quirky women probably because I’m single. Mainly I write because I can’t help it.
How does your writing process work?
Like cooking ramen noodles on a busted stove. First I have to find a mix of ingredients that look appetizing and bring them all together in the pot. The soup stews for a good long time, and occasionally I stir it, until sooner or later it looks edible. Often I’ll get burnt out and put it on the backburner to work on something else for awhile: I generally have three different meals going at any given time. The downside is it takes me forever to finish a project; the upside is, I end up with several finished projects at once.
I answer questions 2-4 in more detail here. Hope it inspires you.
Do you have any artistic pursuits besides writing?
Too many. I like to draw things, with varying levels of success.
I used to do comics, but I’m focusing on writing at the moment. Comics take too much time and work for something that nobody really notices in the end, which is what happened with my last comic. I tend to work in black and white when I do comics, and I draw everything by hand. Here’s a glimpse of my page creation process for Daddy’s Girl:
I draw everything traditionally, ink it with black micron pens and red ball-point gel pens, then scan in black and white so the red becomes gray and the black stands out. I do the lettering by hand as well. Repeat for three years until well done.
I’m also a game design hobbyist, and I host a lot of board games and video games on my site. I do the graphics for all my video games, and tend toward lo-res retro graphics because it’s not as time-consuming (and I like how it looks better than 3D rendered crap).
What literary character is like you?
Charlie Brown: bad luck, girl troubles and all.
I know he’s a cartoon, but he’s a famous cartoon, and they made him into a musical play, so I say he counts.
I found these at the local Deseret, which is basically a Mormon goodwill. I initially got them as a white elephant gift, but I did a little research on them and decided to keep and eventually sell them.
These figures were made by Latter Day Designs, a Mormon toy company founded in 1995. They still make and sell these toys, from what I was able to gather, for about $6 apiece. The interesting bit is the dates on the figures: two are from ’95, two from ’96, and the big ol’ horseman is from ’97. Basically they’re among the very first production runs of this toy line, which makes them vintage collectibles according to Etsy. They’re not in bad condition, either, forgiving a slightly broken staff and some paint scuffs here and there — they’d still look nice on somebody’s display case.
Our studio used Macs powered with Final Cut, which was amazing video editing software at the time. Equally amazing was the speech software that allowed our two main workstations to speak in a variety of wobbly, stilted computer-generated voices whenever an alert message popped up. The voices would (badly) pronounce whatever phrases you typed into their respective databases. It was as simple as “open speech program => select alert message => add new random phrase to say for Alert X, Y or Z.”
So let’s say you got an error message while working. The computer might say in an endearing computer-lady voice, “Whoops. Sorry about that.”
Or, if you were using our machines, you’d very likely hear the computer say in an idiotic male robot voice, “Oh, sure. Blame it on me. You stoo-pid hu-mans are all the same.” Or maybe even, “Don’t look at me. You fucked it up.”
This is because my brother Josh and I stayed after school for three hours, programming every stupid insult we could think of into the speech programs of both workstations: anything ranging from smack-talking the user to insulting specific people in the classroom. Mr Keene would be in the middle of a lecture and somebody doing make-up work in the back of the classroom would trigger a loud phrase like, “Here is my impression of Mr Keene. Duh. I am a jerk. How duz this com-pyoo-ter work. Oh god am I stoo-pid.”
We came into class to do a little work on a project the day after we’d infected our computers with the Douche Virus. Schoolmate Amy was at one of the main workstations, typing furiously at the keyboard.
“Hey, Amy,” said Josh. “What’s up?”
“THIS STUPID COMPUTER CALLED ME RETARDED!”
I was surprised she hadn’t smashed the thing to bits. Amy didn’t take shit off of nobody.
Immature behavior was common in Mr Keene’s class from Day One, when he stood in front of class and said,
“Okay, everyone is going to mingle and form production groups of four or five people: this will be your group for the rest of the year, so I’m giving you an hour to do so. Then you’re going to agree on a name for your production group. At the end of your projects, you’ll show your group name and logo so that your group gets credit for the project. One hour to form groups and pick group names. Got it? So get to it.”
We formed our groups pretty quickly and spent most of the class period coming up with group names. At the end of the hour, Mr Keene called for our attention again.
“When I point to your group, your group leader will state your group name.”
“Team G-Spot,” said the first group.
“Team SuckIt,” said the second.
“Pink Taco Productions,” said the third.
“1-900-BUST-A-NUT,” said the fourth.
“T & A Unlimited,” said the fifth.
“Okay. You all need new group names,” said Mr Keene. “You have five minutes.”
I think my group settled for Deranged Muppet Productions.
I joined Mr Keene’s Media Class my senior year (1999-2000): as the “institution” in charge of the morning announcements, this class had generated a legacy for itself over the past three years, mainly due to its weekly Top Ten lists. The lists were hosted by the annually-changing Top Ten Guy, a senior media class student who, as a result of the Top Ten’s popularity, would be the face of the media class for a whole year. They were also very cheesy and safe, as you’d expect from a very mormon school demographic. Around the time my brother Josh and I joined the class, things actually became entertaining: in addition to Top Ten lists, the ’99-’00 media class churned out all kinds of video specials whenever a good idea came to us — like the Top Tens, these specials would be aired immediately after Friday’s morning announcements. Sometimes the other school clubs would even ask us to do ads for school events.
Sometimes this was a terrible idea.
One Friday morning, immensely stuffy representatives of the equally stuffy Dance Club came to the media classroom with a handful of tapes — raw footage they’d filmed themselves in the dance classroom. With this footage, we were to make a week’s worth of ads for next week’s dance show: one unique ad for each day of the week, to be shown after the morning announcements. The show itself was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening, like all Centennial shows.
Unfortunately for Dance Club, there were other school events coming up (like the highly anticipated students-vs-teachers basketball game) that our production groups were much more interested in, so there really weren’t any takers for the Dance Club ad campaign.
Except for me, that is: Mr Keene’s anti-favorite student. Never figured out why, and he certainly never explained — he just wasn’t keen on my work, if you’ll excuse the pun. But apparently even he didn’t think much of the Dance Club’s request, because he okayed me as the Dance Club’s ad man the second I volunteered. So I spent Friday as a freelancer for Dance Club while everyone else busied themselves with bigger, more important productions.
I should also mention that the Dance Club girls were exactly the sort of girls I put up with all through elementary school: the sort of pampered, eye-rolling brats you think only exist in movie or TV stereotypes, wearing their entitlement like a badge of honor and putting the weird boys and girls in their place at every opportunity. This is why, in the adult world, people in Mr. Keene’s position do background checks before hiring employees.
Monday’s Ad. The video opened with the following caption:
“We’ve secretly replaced the Centennial Dance Club floor with a thick layer of greasy cheddar cheese. Lets see if they can tell the difference!”
This was followed by footage of the limber Dance Club girls performing a small part of one of their upcoming dance routines, with the camera in fixed position with full view of the dance class floor — a wooden floor that actually looked the color of cheese. The skinny dancers pranced and leaped and twirled gracefully across the floor in near-perfect synchronization for about a minute, until finally one girl bounded to the center of the room and talked to the camera about the upcoming show.
From beginning to end, every single time a foot came in contact with that floor, I added a cartoony squish, splat, or poot noise from a collection of roughly 100 such sound effects. I had it synched so perfectly you couldn’t help laughing at it, especially when a dancer took tiny, rapid steps reminiscent of a mouse-fart machine gun.
This was the ad that aired right after morning announcements concluded. Less than a minute later, the same two Dance Club reps from the previous week came to talk to Mr Keene in private. The girls spoke briefly, and then left. Mr Keene assembled the class to discuss the day’s work.
“So, ah…Dance Club says Mike can’t make the dance show ads for the rest of the week. So someone else needs to take over that project.”
Kenny, our resident Quinton Tarantino wannabe, eagerly volunteered.
Tuesday’s Ad. A fixed shot of two Dance Club girls as they talked excitedly and stiltedly about the details of their upcoming weekend dance show. However, Kenny and a pal had re-dubbed their dialogue — reciting their lines word for word, but in voices that fell somewhere between “professional wrestler” and “drag queen.” They had the lips synched perfectly. Comedy gold.
Once again, the Dance Club reps paid Mr Keene a visit, talking to him in private very briefly. Then class started.
“Okay, so Dance Club is going to make the rest of the week’s ads themselves. They will be using our facilities during lunch hours, and they will have priority with the machines during that time. Good work, everyone.”
Apparently Dance Club took itself very seriously.
I went to Centennial High School from 1996 to 2000. The student demographics were almost entirely split between privileged white mormons and at-risk chicanos.
I hung out with the chicanos.
Freshman year I’d have lunch with the boys from PE: Ronnie, Anthony, Tony, Ruben, Macariom, Marco, Roman, and Chris (the only other white dude in the group). We’d cram together around one table and shoot the shit while we ate. Sometimes the girlfriends (sass-mouthed little latinas, every one of ’em) would join us if there was any room.
One day during lunch, Tony brought an exciting surprise: a butane lighter with a picture of a sexy supermodel in a black bikini on one side. The picture was unique in that, when another flame was applied to it, the bikini would temporarily vanish! To a flock of fifteen-year-old boys, this was the holy grail of awesome. We eagerly goaded Tony to demonstrate.
That’s when Tony realized that, in his juvenile excitement, he’d forgotten to bring an extra lighter.
As nobody else at our table smoked, nobody else had a lighter to loan to the cause…and as luck would have it, neither did anyone else at the surrounding tables. What we did have was Ruben, who was batshit crazy, especially when it came to the prospect of seeing a naked lady, real or not.
“Give it,” said Ruben. “I’ll use my thumb.”
“What?” said the rest of us.
“You know how when you rub two sticks together fast enough it generates enough heat to make a fire? If I rub it with my thumb, maybe I can make it hot enough to vanish the bikini.”
We gave him the lighter, and he set to work, gripping the lighter in one vice-like hand and feverishly rubbing the length of the bikini lady with the thumb of his other hand. He did this for the entire half-hour lunch period while the rest of us continued chatting — he seemed to forget we were even there as he slaved away at that magic bikini.
Just as the bell rang and everyone stood to return to class, Ruben’s efforts bore fruit: we all erupted into idiotic cheers as the bikini vanished before our eyes! It actually worked! We couldn’t believe it worked!
We believed Ruben’s trip to the nurse’s office, though, to treat the first-degree burns on his thumb.
I drew this a year ago for a fellow artist. Just posting it here in case she wants it back.
Mike's Toybox 